Remember when surfing the web was a treat? A delicacy, almost. You’d fire up the whatever-kilobaud modem and start the pay-per-minute meter running and read about politics or whatever. A fun time. That’s no longer the case, and I’m honestly rotting from overexposure to the online. Read More >>

Halfway between Brooklyn and Montauk, a steel cupola propped up on wooden legs once looked out over the Long Island Sound and beyond the horizon. Built in the first years of the 20th century, Wardenclyffe Tower served as the centrepiece of a real-life mad scientist’s laboratory. Lever pulling, lightning bolts, maniacal laughter—this is where that sort of thing was supposed to happen. And it almost did. Read More >>

Everyone wants to get into the Internet of Things now, despite the crippling security flaws that continue to plague the sector, and Vodafone is apparently no exception. It's launching a new IoT platform called V by Vodafone, and with it comes four new connected devices. Read More >>

The swarm of internet-connected security cameras, kitchen appliances, wearables, and other gadgets that make up the Internet of Things are notoriously insecure. Two US senators want to fix that—at least for tech acquired by the federal government—and are introducing bipartisan legislation intended to force manufacturers to include basic security features in their products. Read More >>

The Roomba is generally regarded as a cute little robot friend that no one but dogs would consider to be a potential menace. But for the last couple of years, the robovacs have been quietly mapping homes to maximise efficiency. Now, the device’s makers plan to sell that data to smart home device manufacturers, turning the friendly robot into a creeping, creepy little spy. Read More >>

Since the Echo’s release in 2014, millions of people have given in to Amazon’s nonstop advertising and welcomed Alexa into their homes. Amazon’s original sell for the always-on, voice-activated device was that users could “ask Echo for information, music, news, sports scores, and weather from across the room and get results or answers instantly.” But in the last couple of months, it has evolved into something else: the hub for Amazon’s new social network. Read More >>

Bluetooth is about to become a hell of a lot more useful. Today the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (“SIG”), the industry body that defines the standard, has announced the standards for mesh network. This might sound like a dull technical update - but it could transform technology and the world around us. Here’s all you need to know. Read More >>

Intel's three development kits Edison, Joule and Galileo have been cancelled. The Intel boards were launched in 2013 with Galileo, a joint venture with Arduino, designed to take advantage of the rapidly expanding Internet of Things hype. A fourth product, called MinnowBoard will launch later this year and will offer much of the same appeal as Raspberry Pi. Read More >>

Looks like corporate Big Brother might be watching your every move. Back in February US electronics company Vizio was forced to pay millions for secretly snooping on customers, but the TV tech giant isn’t the first corporation to go 1984 in peoples' homes. Amazon and Google have microphones in every room thanks to the Echo and Home, and Samsung and Microsoft can use cameras to watch you. Can you kit out your house with TVs, talking speakers and security cameras without getting spied on by the corporate entities behind them? Read More >>

The hacker’s name is Janit0r. You’ve probably never heard of him, but perhaps you’ve heard of his work. Janit0r is reportedly the one behind a particularly gnarly but undeniably fascinating form of malware called BrickerBot. BrickerBot, as the name implies, will brick internet of things (IoT) devices that fail a simple security test. This is surely illegal, but I love it. Read More >>

Humans contain multitudes. We have a demonstrated ability to work hard, sweat and toil for our daily bread, and, as a society, achieve magnificent feats of science and technology. We’ve literally reached the stars! Read More >>

Smart sex toys have a single core idea: take one of the most personal and private parts of a someone’s life and hook it up to a network designed for blasting information out for all the world to see. Back in August, it came to light that one wired-up Canadian dildo maker had violated its user’s privacy and now it has to pay up, big time. Read More >>